


faith (and other kinds of hunger)

by subwaywalls



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, did someone ask for another weird au? no? thats what youre getting anyway, festival spoilers ig, uhhh i guess vaguely relevant to the concept of genius loci
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:07:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26950375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subwaywalls/pseuds/subwaywalls
Summary: They reach the bottom of the cliffs. Dream halts, gaze drifting over their sprawling, hidden potato farm, before resettling on Wilbur.“Alright then,” he says. “Answer this: did you decide to hold the election before or after you realized that when L’Manburg gets destroyed, you bleed for it?(+ now with continuation because I can't stop myself apparently)
Relationships: Clay | Dream & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & Wilbur Soot
Comments: 53
Kudos: 371





	1. Chapter 1

“Why are you looking at me like that?”  
  
“Like what?”  
  
“Like _that_.” Wilbur narrows his eyes at the porcelain mask. “I can’t even see your face, but I know you’re smirking under there.”  
  
Dream laughs, rocking his weight to his heels like he’s got nothing to fear. And honestly, between his armor and Wilbur’s lack thereof, he really doesn’t. Pogtopia’s ravine might as well be as secure for him as the heart of Dream SMP.  
  
“Why are you even still here,” Wilbur says, when it becomes clear that Dream doesn’t intend on leaving. “We came to an agreement, didn’t we? What else could you want?”  
  
“What _do_ I want?” Dream steps past him, hands clasped behind his back. Wilbur follows as he starts meandering his way down the cobbled stairs to the belly of the ravine. “I’ve already got everything I want, except for who’s in the Manburg seat of power right now, but we’re working on that. For now, I want… hm. Either an answer, or for you to listen, I guess. That’s up to you.”  
  
Wilbur can’t help but feel as though this is a trap of some sort—verbally. While Dream has agreed to help him, it is for his own gain more than anything else. A little cautious trepidation is in order. “Let me take a shot at the answer,” he says warily, “and if it doesn’t work out, I can just listen to you after.”  
  
“Fair enough.”  
  
They reach the bottom of the cliffs. Dream halts, gaze drifting over their sprawling, hidden potato farm, before resettling on Wilbur.  
  
“Alright then,” he says. “Answer this: did you decide to hold the election before or after you realized that when L’Manburg gets destroyed, you bleed for it?”  
  
Wilbur stills.  
  
“I think it was after,” Dream says, casual as anything.  
  
“You knew,” Wilbur breathes.  
  
“You thought that pain was tied to leadership—”  
  
“You blew it up and you _knew_!”  
  
“—but it’s not. L’Manburg’s pain is tied to its maker. It’s tied to _you_.”  
  
Wilbur lunges before he even knows what he’s doing, his newly enchanted diamond sword flashing to his hand. “You knew!” he accuses, wild-eyed and all but drowning in the memory of blood in his lungs as the ground ruptured beneath him and within him all at once. “You kept using TNT, I should’ve known—”  
  
Dream’s netherite axe clangs against Wilbur’s blade, deflecting the blow. “I could say I was trying to save you the pain when I said no to your nation,” he continues, practically singsong. “I could say that I tried to warn you with all the times I blew up your land. But I won’t lie. The truth is, Wilbur, when you claim something here, you claim all of it. Every high, every low, every drop of joy and every inch of pain. And the funny thing, Wilbur Soot, is that it claims you _back_.”  
  
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Wilbur hisses.  
  
“Why am I helping you?” Dream says. “Why do I give people the fuel they need to wage war? Or, better yet, why is that the only thing I do?”  
  
Impatient, Wilbur lets out a derisive scoff. He lets his diamond blade droop to the floor, and then dismisses it from hand altogether. “We talked about this. Your enemies weaken each other, so you can swoop in at the end as the victor.”  
  
“You’re not very good at answers,” Dream says. His weapon glints, the purple glow of enchantment casting an ominous light across his form, and Wilbur holds his tongue. “Let’s try the listening instead. One day, a small group of people arrive at a world with no plan to conquer or kill or claim. The group grows larger and larger over time. Suddenly, one day, a faction declares itself separate from all the others.”  
  
“And then war broke out,” Wilbur says, knowing full well what he’s really saying.  
  
Dream simply cocks his head to the side, as though Wilbur is not catching what he expected him to. “Yes,” he says, “but at the same time, land that was just there suddenly becomes owned. Suddenly, it has a leader—suddenly, a leader has land.”  
  
In other words, Wilbur realizes, he is not the only one.  
  
“I suppose you experimented with TNT placement in your SMP, first,” Wilbur says.  
  
Dream says nothing, but Wilbur can see the way the axe shifts in his tightened grip. It’s as good a confirmation as any.  
  
A wave of satisfaction rises up in Wilbur—a smug, bitter relish in the fact that Dream must’ve torn himself apart, too. This even explains why he’s so amenable to Wilbur blowing Manburg sky-high; he’ll get the reward of Wilbur weakening himself to the bone just to rip the seat of power away from its elected ruler.  
  
“That’s not the point here,” Dream says. “I officialized Dream SMP for the sole purpose of war. Do you understand what that means? Can you imagine?” He steps forward, crowding into Wilbur’s space. It takes an immense amount of self-control for Wilbur to not take a step back in return. “Something made only to incite conflict. Something that lives only so long as there is another to fight against. Something with a treaty it must honor and a hunger it must satisfy—and I, the lynchpin of its heart—don’t you _get_ it, Wilbur? What did you make L’Manburg for?”  
  
Wilbur stares into that porcelain mask, hands steady at his sides. “It was for our freedom,” he says.  
  
“It was for yours,” Dream says. “How could your own freedom grind you down like this? How could it drive you to find shackles elsewhere?” He laughs, suddenly, backing off to drag the sharp edge of his axe against the walls of Pogtopia. Sparks light up the ravine, and Wilbur feels his heart jump to his throat. “Does Tommy know that you haven’t really claimed Pogtopia? Does he know that you tricked _him_ into becoming the third of us?”  
  
Wilbur bristles. He does not think of Tommy’s confused yelp when a creeper went off just barely out of blast radius, or the way he rubbed his arms like they hurt after Wilbur went against his wishes to seal up the entrances. “Shut up, he—“  
  
“Oh, I’m sure he’ll find out the hard way. You’d never tell him, would you? You’d never confess to betraying his trust and admiration.” Dream lets out a theatrical sigh. “If you did, you’d have a civil war on your hands. And you know how I feel about wars.”  
  
He needs them. He needs them like Wilbur needs freedom, like Tommy needs—refuge? Safety? What does Pogtopia stand for, really?  
  
Wilbur shakes his head. “That still doesn’t explain what you’re doing here,” he says. “Just to gloat that you know I’m hurting myself?”  
  
“Just to explain myself, I guess,” he says with false lightness. “I know you’ve been having trust issues, seeing as your land is being turned against you, so I figured I’d help alleviate that paranoia a little.”  
  
Wilbur knows damn well that Dream is a lying liar who lies and most definitely knows that this will only make his paranoia worse—but you know what? That’s fine! This is all fine. He still gave Wilbur the TNT.  
  
Nothing matters past that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me? putting up a finished oneshot? impossible


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: ok it's just a oneshot. it's done and over
> 
> the festival: happens
> 
> me: ......... so i lied, actually,

Only when all is still again—after the slaughter, after the pit fight, after even the sunset song when they cooled their heels a little—only then does the root of all of Tommy’s conflicts reveal himself.

“I hope you’re happy with yourself, Big D,” he says. 

Dream, with his hands impassively tucked into the pocket of his sweater, barely acknowledges Tommy. He just keeps looking over the abandoned festival grounds, unreadable as always. “Hm,” he says, and nothing else.

Tommy thinks about just turning around and leaving, but… against all odds, Dream is something of a question mark right now. Techno is a traitor and Wilbur’s gone mad, but Dream didn’t have a hand in the way the festival went down, really. Sure, he provided the TNT, but the stuff didn’t even go off. (Not for lack of trying, obviously, but still.)

Wilbur said that Dream acted only out of self-interest. That might not be a bad thing, considering Tommy’s other options; Manburg wants him gone, and Wilbur and Techno are only acting for chaos’ sake. Dream’s self-interest includes the revival of L’Manburg, at least. Compared to everything else, it’s the only thing that even  _ somewhat _ aligns with what Tommy wants. That makes Dream at least kind of safe, right? Maybe worth a shot at?

Besides, between him, Tubbo, and Niki, they don’t exactly have a powerhouse of influence, officially speaking. Having Dream on their side would be incredibly helpful.

Tommy glances back at Dream, who hasn’t moved from his perch, and sighs. He strides across the tower roof, closing the distance between them. “Listen,” he begins, “Big D, I—”

“Not much of a war, was it?”

Tommy blinks. “What?”

“None of the TNT went off.” Dream cocks his head to the side, as though listening to a faraway song. “Some people died, but there wasn’t much of a fight. Only one person really took any violent action, and he had to be pressed into it. So: not much of a war, this festival.”

A flash of Tubbo’s fear comes to mind, and Tommy bristles. “Don’t act like nothing important happened,” he says. “Techno killed  _ Tubbo _ . He betrayed us. Wilbur  _ lied _ . And we couldn’t even find the stupid button to blow it all up.”

Dream laughs, suddenly. “Oh, and here I thought Wilbur had a glimpse of clarity,” he says.

“I mean, he hesitated to blow it up,” Tommy says. “But it’s like—it doesn’t even matter to him, whether or not it explodes!” He sends Dream a disdainful glare when the other player only snorts in disbelief. “Seriously! He doesn’t  _ care _ , he’s just trying to rile everyone up and make everything all, all, I don’t know, chaotic or some shit.” 

“That’s the thing with freedom, you know,” Dream says, which annoyingly has absolutely nothing to do with what Tommy is trying to tell him. “You forget how to rein it in, you forget what it stands for and why, and suddenly any reason at all seems like a shackle holding you down. That’s what’s gotten into him, Tommy,” he adds before Tommy can interject. “L’Manburg’s transformation—the way everyone on its land is bleeding or lying—that’s what’s changed him.”

Tommy has no idea what in the  _ world _ Dream is trying to tell him. “Okay, well, how do I make it stop?”

“You can’t.”

“Wha—why? What do you mean I can’t?” 

Dream turns to look at him. “Even if you win,” he says, “even if you put everything back the way it was, exactly, do you think L’Manburg could ever trust itself again? Could Wilbur look his son in the eye and know without a doubt that he would not be betrayed?”

“Fundy says he’s a spy for us.”

“So he says,” Dream agrees. “And Wilbur says he’s not. Who’s Wilbur going to listen to? His own self, or the voice of someone he distrusts?”

Tommy frowns. Something in his stomach turns uncomfortably at those implications. “I don’t like all these questions.”

“Because you know what the answers are. You just don’t like them.”

“No, it’s just because they’re annoying.”

“Oh, come on,” Dream says impatiently. “I can spell it out for you, if you want. Actually, I’ll spell it out for you anyway: it’s because all this makes you feel like everything you ever trusted as safe might not actually  _ be _ safe. You’re not on pace to get back that security you had when you were L’Manburg’s right hand, because Wilbur is straying from the path, and that scares you. In fact, it probably hurts to think about how little your circle of friends has shrunk, doesn’t it,  _ Pogtopia _ ?”

There’s a sharpness in his tone that makes Tommy flinch. It’s not one of those weird cases of ghost damage he’s been getting recently, it’s just how unnerving this whole spiel is. He is suddenly, viciously reminded that no matter what position Dream takes now doesn’t erase the fact that he’s the one who led Dream SMP to victory, who crushed L’Manburg so utterly, who spared its existence on a materialistic good that he doesn’t even have anymore. 

Tommy swallows thickly, and tries, “Dream, it’s not like that.”

“It is,” Dream says. “You’d better wisen up, Tommy. Your leader’s crown slipped off a long time ago.”

Tommy shakes his head. “He’s not irredeemable. Just because he’s gone crazy now doesn’t mean he can’t—he hesitated to blow up the festival!” 

“He has a brain cell, yes,” Dream says dryly. 

“He really ddn’t want to, and when Tubbo was being e-executed, I—it was me,” he says, and immediately hates himself for it. It wasn’t his fault. It’s  _ not _ . “I was the one who wanted to blow them up, because of Techno.”

Dream straightens abruptly at that. “Oh,” he says, and there’s a cruel sort of delight to his voice when he continues, “that was you?  _ You _ wanted to blow up Manburg?”

“They killed Tubbo!” Tommy defends.

“You wanted to blow it up,” Dream repeats as though Tommy hadn’t spoken at all, and breaks out into a cackling laugh. “I wish I could’ve seen Wilbur’s face—you don’t even  _ know _ , do you, Tommy?” He tips his head back, snickering. “What did he say when you made it clear you wanted to blow his land to kingdom come? Did you notice anything?”

Tommy is keen enough to know that Dream is fishing for a specific answer, and he’s hesitant to give it. “Nothing really,” he says. “He just… wouldn’t shut up about Techno and traitors and chaos. He made a pit for me to fight Techno in.”

“He made a pit, you say,” Dream muses. “Did you approve of this pit?”

“Uh, not really, but it’s not like I can stop him from doing what he likes with Pogtopia.” And then, when this sends Dream into another fit of hysteria, “Why are you laughing again? You’re as crazy as he is.” 

“Not at all,” Dream says, unconvincingly. “I assume Techno kicked your butt.” 

Tommy kicks at the ground and grumbles, vividly reminded of his bloodied fists and face. His arms had already felt so sore going into the fight, too. “It wasn’t fair. And it doesn’t make up for killing my best friend.”

“So Wilbur doesn’t care that Techno killed Tubbo.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“Hm,” says Dream. Tommy glances up at him, because it sounds as though Dream knows why. “Techno killed a bunch of other people, too.”

“That doesn’t mean anything! He still listened to the Manburg president, our  _ enemy _ , and killed Tubbo when Wilbur promised that he wouldn’t be hurt!”

“I wonder,” says Dream, and then he falls silent. Tommy hates that, actually—hates that it Dream knows something he’s not sharing, hates that Dream in the shadows has more power than he lets on and shares, hates that Dream stepped back and looked away from the festival and didn’t lift a finger past providing Wilbur the means with which he could destroy their  _ home _ —

Tommy does not have Dream’s crossbow on him anymore, but he does have a sword and the guts to use it. He lunges in equal parts fury and frustration, the blade flashing to his hand, aiming for that infuriating mask.

His sword thunks uselessly against a shield, and then Dream shoves forward with it, knocking Tommy off-balance enough that a simple sweep at his legs knocks him to the floor.

“You lot are incredibly trigger-happy,” Dream says, not even winded. He crouches next to Tommy, who scowls up at him. “Hey, don’t look at me like that, I’m about to answer all of your questions.”

Tommy blinks. “You are?”

“Yeah, sure. The first answer is that Wilbur will do anything to get what he wants. The second answer is that I didn’t make a mistake.”

Groaning, Tommy lets his head fall back on the ground with a thud. “That doesn’t answer  _ anything _ .”

“I’m not just going to show you how to  _ apply _ the answers,” Dream says. He straightens, stretching slightly. “I can’t make it too easy for you. Where’s the payoff in that?”

Tommy debates the merits of just stabbing Dream again, and decides the chances of the blow connecting are far too low for it to be worth trying, so he just rolls his eyes instead. “Fine. Wilbur doesn’t care about anything or anyone, so he won’t stop trying to destroy Manburg no matter what. And you’re always right, I assume.”

“Not always.”

“Wow, really? I never would’ve guessed,” Tommy sneers, pumping as much sarcasm into those words as he can possibly manage. “Just as human as the rest of us, huh?”

Dream is quiet.

That’s… unsettling. “Dream?”

“I’m tired of this,” Dream says, abruptly. “I need… Okay. Sure, civil war, why not.” He lifts a hand to his masked face, and Tommy gets the impression that he’s grinning. “So, Tommy! I called you Pogtopia. I didn’t make a mistake. Wilbur didn’t want Pogtopia, so he just let you claim it instead. He’s already suffered L’Manburg’s rise and fall, after all—just like I’ve suffered my SMP’s victories and losses.”

Tommy stares at him, utterly lost. “What?” 

“It’ll be faster just to show you,” Dream says, and TNT materializes in his hands. “Let’s take a visit to your land of safety and trust or whatever. After this, maybe you’ll understand why I’m surprised Wilbur hadn’t come out of this event choking on his own blood.”


	3. Chapter 3

Once upon a time, when Wilbur heard Tommy crying out in pain, he would have torn the world down to save him. 

Today, he keeps himself pressed against the wall around the corner. It’s always better to be out of sight. 

“Why did that hurt!” Tommy shouts, his voice echoing through the ravine. “I was ages away!”

“Wow,” says Dream’s voice, and Wilbur feels his heart do a weird thing where it wants to plummet to his gut but doesn’t care enough to do so. “That was just one piece of TNT, you big baby. I already patched the wall back up. It’s like it never happened.” 

“Except that I took damage even though I was standing all the way over here!” Tommy says, and Wilbur clenches his jaw. So this is happening now, then. Dream’s already gotten impatient enough (or hungry enough, maybe) to bring Tommy to the truth on his own. 

It doesn’t matter, really. There’s no reason for Wilbur’s nails to dig into the palms of his hands like they are; Tommy knowing about what he’s become doesn’t change anything. 

“Did you take damage?” the boy demands, still oblivious. “You were standing closer to it than I was… You didn’t! How are you doing that?”

“Am I this bad at explaining or are you just really bad at understanding?” Dream wonders aloud. Before Tommy can retort, he barrels on with, “Look, you were here. You are.”

“That doesn’t—”

“It’s Pogtopia, Tommy, and that’s part of you now. Do you remember when I exploded L’Manburg?”

“I could never forget,” Tommy snaps, reinvigorated with half-forgotten grief. “You nearly killed everyone.”

Dream hums, as though disappointed in himself for not  _ actually _ killing everyone that time. “How badly was Wilbur off after that?”

Wilbur closes his eyes as Tommy says, “He got the brunt of it, so worse than the rest of us.”

He still remembers it as vividly as the day itself: his own lofty arrogance that genuinely believed Dream had only brought one piece of TNT with him, the twinge of pain as the first one went off, and then the  _ waterfall _ of agony as the explosions chained together, ripping the land to shreds. If the force of the consecutive bombs hadn’t sent him flying in the first place, he might’ve collapsed on the spot. It’s only thanks to Fundy, who helped him to the river, that he escaped at all.

He’s lucky that everyone was too busy looking back at the devastation and screaming. Nobody noticed Wilbur retching blood into the water until after he rinsed it all away.

After that, he doesn’t remember much. Just the exhaustion, the pain, and the gnawing hunger as freedom slips from his reach. He hadn’t even the energy to stop Tommy from that reckless duel, though it had ended up being their salvation.

“You all were standing pretty close to each other,” Dream says. “It doesn’t make sense that Wilbur was  _ that _ badly off for so long when the rest of you bounced back so quickly, does it?”

There’s a thud as Tommy assumedly jumps to his feet, and then an angry, “You did something to him!”

“Well.” Wilbur can  _ hear _ that smile. He knows Dream is just dragging it out for his own amusement at this point, reveling in his upper hand. “I blew up his land. You felt what  _ one _ piece of TNT did to you. I used so much more on L’Manburg.”

Wilbur lets out a hefty sigh, well aware that he’d be giving away his presence, and turns the corner. Dream is situated up above on one of the bridges spanning the width of the ravine, while Tommy’s climbed halfway up the stairs to reach him. Dream’s head just barely inclines in his direction, unsurprised, but Tommy gives himself whiplash with how quickly he whirls around.

“Stop leading the boy on, Dream,” Wilbur says. “Out with it.” He makes a show of picking nonexistent dust off his ratty old coat, disinterested, even though it feels like the ravine is starting to constrict around him. This is Tommy’s place of power, technically, and Dream is slowly, slowly turning that force of will against him. 

“Wilbur?” Tommy’s shoulders are tense. He starts towards Wilbur, but doesn’t take more than a step.

Dream hops off his ledge—it’s high enough that he takes damage on impact with the ground below, but not enough to knock that smug, self-assured aura off his posture. “Wilbur founded L’Manburg, Tommy, just like I claimed Dream SMP. It’s… ha. It’s a burden, I’ll tell you that much. I don’t blame Wilbur for sneakily, quietly refusing to make Pogtopia, although that does mean Pogtopia’s creator falls to the next most invested person. In other words, you.”

“What are you talking about?” Tommy shifts his weight nervously, gaze flicking between Dream and Wilbur. “Wilbur made Pogtopia—he said, he said he’d already made one nation, so making another would be easy—”

Dream interrupts with thrilled laughter, making Wilbur’s skin crawl with irritation. “Easy, sure! But nobody  _ wants _ another reason to be hurt. He didn’t want it, so he played you into doing it instead, Tommy. You didn’t suspect a thing, you didn’t question anything! You just endured the little chip damage from the occasional damage to Pogtopia while the current state of Manburg drove Wilbur  _ insane _ .” 

“Don’t act like you’re any better off,” Wilbur sneers, determined to say his piece. “You’re only revealing this now because you want Tommy to fight me—just another war to feed you, isn’t that right? Not that I’m against it,” he adds truthfully. Dream is annoyingly unpredictable, yes, but still useful. Another facet to this war might be just the thing needed to push everything over the edge to destruction. 

Still, Wilbur considers it well within his right to be upset at the way Dream is ripping up all of his carefully hidden, carefully made decisions and just exposing them to Tommy’s immature perspective. In the end, he will only be proven right, of course, but in the meantime it just makes such a  _ mess _ .

It’s no surprise, actually. That mess is what Dream lives off of.

“Don’t get it wrong, Tommy,” Wilbur says, meeting Dream’s eyes—or the eyes of his mask, rather. “Nobody’s doing this for anyone else. We’re all selfish here.”

Something clatters above them. Wilbur doesn’t need to look up to know that a hairline crack is branching across one of the rock faces now, as Tommy opens and closes his mouth like a beached fish. Conflict wars across his face and through the ravine, which trembles ever so slightly around them.

Tommy swallows. “And that’s why—all the explosions and stuff hurt people, even out of blast radius.”

“If by ‘people’ you mean specifically us, then yes.” Dream gestures at the three of them. “And only in each of our lands. It’s better to think of it as any damage at all, rather than explosions.”

“But why?”

Dream lets his shoulders rise and fall in an uncaring shrug. 

“Have you ever heard of the term ‘I’ll die on this hill’, Tommy?” Wilbur says. “We picked a hill to stand for, and now we’re stuck to it. Kind of becoming it, a little bit.”

Tommy looks to him, endearingly and pitifully lost. “Then you… Wilbur, L’Manburg is—wait. Why do you wanna blow it up, then? Wouldn’t that hurt you?”

“A bit of an understatement, but yes. It would have.” Wilbur crooks a smile at him. “L’Manburg was supposed to be our freedom, Tommy. Our emancipation. And now it’s put bars on where we can and cannot be, and I can’t even  _ go _ to the land I made without it screaming that I’m not allowed there—yes, I thought it was something I could quietly pass off to the next president— _ yes _ , I was wrong and now someone else controls it while I’m, I don’t know,  _ bound _ to it. There’s no other way but to get rid of the problem at its source.”

Wilbur steps up, now, intent on making his position crystal clear to the boy-turned-leader who will soon be across the battle line from him.

“I said that if I can’t have L’Manburg, no one could. I meant it. Nobody gets to control  _ my _ freedom except  _ me _ .”

An eerie sound echoes out of the cave systems crossing through Pogtopia, and Tommy narrows his eyes. “We built L’Manburg together, Wilbur,” he says, and  _ oh _ that fire in his eyes is wonderful, it means he’s going to put up a fight, it means there will be collateral damage and blood and reason to raze each other to bedrock. Anger just makes everything easier to burn, and Tommy’s catching fire as he snaps, “I don’t care if you’re the, the special creator or whatever, it’s still our home. All L’Manburgians’ home! You can’t just destroy it all, everyone wants you back, they—”

Wilbur laughs. “Do they? Is that why I was voted  _ out _ , Tommy? Because they wanted me to remain in the seat of power?” He shakes his head. “They’re just following the loudest voice. There’s no loyalty there.”

It’s odd, the way Tommy’s staring at him. It’s like he’s looking at a stranger.

There’s no stranger here, though. It’s just Wilbur.  _ People change, _ he thinks, looking back to Dream. 

“How did you turn out like this?” Tommy says. And then, with dawning horror, “Is it because of the land thing? Hold on, am  _ I _ going to go crazy?”

That’s a good question. “I’d like to see it,” Wilbur says. “Or maybe not. Kids throwing tantrums aren’t exactly fun to watch,” but  _ ooh, _ that baleful glance is everything. Sparks to a fire.

“If I had to guess, I’d say it depends on you,” Dream says lightly. He strolls over, knocks his shoulder against Wilbur’s like they’re old friends and not war-torn enemies held from each other’s necks by a precarious treaty. “Wilbur and I kept driving each other further along. We were so focused on each other that we didn’t really look to see where we were going—what we were becoming—until it was too late to change course.”

Wilbur rolls his eyes skyward.  _ He _ knows there’s no changing course. A cause to die for is a cause that consumes you, no question about it. Giving the kid false hope isn’t…

Wait. Why is that crack going away?

Tommy is silent for a single, blessed moment, and then shakes himself out of it. “Maybe for you,” he says. “But it’s going to be different for me and Tubbo and—and Niki. We’re going to get L’Manburg back, not destroy it. You’re not the man I supported in the war, Wilbur, but…”

Feeling Tommy’s gaze on him, Wilbur tilts his head to the side. “Are you going to exile me too, Tommy?”

“I’m going to fix things,” Tommy says.

“You can’t fix me. You can’t fix us.”

“I’m gong to get L’Manburg back,” he insists. “I won’t stop you, Wilbur, but you can’t stop me either.”

As though anyone could tell Wilbur what he can and can’t do anymore. “Sure,” he says, lies dripping like honey off his tongue. “I look forward to watching you try.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [insert something ab the power of friendship]
> 
> now it's.... probably finished. probably. until something else happens ig idk

**Author's Note:**

> anyway dream is not supposed to be making much sense here unfortunately. blowing himself up so many times during the “wait what the fuck why am I taking damage from that creeper I’m standing a dozen blocks away” experimental era may have sucked the sanity right out of his head idk


End file.
